a person in charge of a particular department, group of workers, etc., as in a factory or the like.
the member of a jury selected to preside over and speak for all the jurors on the panel.
Gender-neutral form: supervisor. a person, often experienced, who supervises other workmen
Female equivalent: forewoman. law the principal juror, who presides at the deliberations of a jury
See -man.
1175–1225; Middle English forman chief servant, steward. See fore-, man
On many job sites, the boss or supervisor is called the foreman. If you get a job on a construction crew, the foreman is the person in charge. While the supervisor in an office, hospital, or school has a totally different title, in manual labor it's common to use the word foreman. This is true in factories and plants, as well as on ranches and railroads. Even on a jury there's a foreman, the member who announces the group's verdict. A woman in one of these roles might be called foreman, forewoman, or foreperson. A simpler, gender-neutral compromise is to use "supervisor" instead.
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A complaint has been filed against the factory owner and foreman, both of whom are absconding, police said, adding that four special teams have been set up to trace and arrest them.
From BBC • Apr. 20, 2026
And after she came back to California and got married, she and her husband, the Rindge ranch foreman, started up a Guernsey milk business that became one of the biggest dairy operations in the world.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 14, 2026
Halligan told Nachmanoff she brought an altered indictment to the grand jury’s foreman and had them sign off on it without another vote from the full jury.
From Salon • Nov. 19, 2025
Phillips has shipbuilding in his blood—his great-grandfather worked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard starting from the 1950s and later rose to foreman.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 10, 2025
“His eyes aren’t closed,” the foreman said to Lili.
From "Krik? Krak!" by Edwidge Danticat
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
